Support Pambazuka

Search form

You are here

A plan to fund, to the tune of over US $14.5 billion, the project of water transfer from the Congo River to Lake Chad as a way of saving the lake and the livelihoods of millions of people living around the lake could have been another reason that the former Libyan leader Gaddafi was assassinated.

Jacqueline Moudeina is a Chadian lawyer and President of The Chadian Association for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (ATPDH). She is a recipient of the 2011 Right Livelihood Award. Moudeina is pursuing justice for the survivors of former Chadian president Hissène Habré’s terror regime.

Chad accuses Hissène Habré of having looted the Chadian treasury upon fleeing the country, and with reason. But it is obvious that a legal entity, such as a company or a state, cannot be the victim of most serious violations of international law, such as genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture.

The media watchdog, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), has accused Chad of intimidating journalists and called on the government to halt those actions with immediate effect. It said in a statement that Chadian authorities were abusing the judicial and law enforcement systems to silence news coverage critical of the government's performance, censoring publications and targeting one editor with an unjust criminal conviction.

The recent arrests of three union officers and the editor of N’Djamena Bi-Hebdo (an independent, bi-weekly newspaper) are symptomatic of a disintegration of freedom of expression in Chad. These arrests are the result of protest movements against the impoverishment of Chad’s population and the privatization of the country’s resources, reports Global Vocies Online.